


Well Matched, Poorly Matched

by FleetofShippyShips



Series: Prompted Harry Potter Works [65]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Making Up, Post-Hogwarts, Potentially unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 10:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19249708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetofShippyShips/pseuds/FleetofShippyShips
Summary: Draco and Harry have a fight and Draco Apparates to the seaside to calm down. After a few hours, Harry finds him there.





	Well Matched, Poorly Matched

It was hours before Harry found him. Or maybe it was hours before he started looking. He never did take long to find him when he put his mind to it.

Draco wasn’t sure he was glad for the time. His rage had died down to smouldering embers that were in danger of finally losing their last traces of heat. He wasn’t sure he wanted the fight to be over, but it seemed time had made that decision for him.

Waves were crashing. It was loud, the wind whipped at his hair. It had suited his anger when he’d Apparated there, but now it just left him cold.

The sound of crunching sand was his only warning, and then Harry stood beside him.

They both stared out at the sea for several minutes. 

The urge to lash out was gone. The urge to spit hurtful words was gone. All the things he knew about Harry, all the ways to cut deep, they were gone too. They’d slinked back into the vault in his mind as his anger had faded. And there they’d stay.

He doubted Harry would ever provoke him quite that severely again. Not now that he knew Draco’s more vicious bite was only restrained behind a muzzle of his own making, not gone entirely. Draco’s kindness had been love, not fear or guilt or manipulation whatever else Harry had talked himself into believing.

But love never did fully heal old wounds, and now they were cracked open and bleeding.

“I’m not going to apologise,” Harry finally said, just loud enough to be heard over the waves and the wind.

“Good,” Draco said. “I wouldn’t respect you if you did.”

Even if it hurt, he couldn’t deny Harry’s suspicions had once been warranted, even if that time was long gone. He couldn’t entirely blame him. Some of that blame rested with his past self.

It hurt, but at least it had been voiced and then soundly dealt with.

Fingertips brushed the back of Draco’s hand where it hung by his side. He thought about resisting as they reached his fingers, but couldn’t find the energy. He let Harry’s fingers slip between his own. He even held back a little. Just weakly.

“Should I have wanted space for longer?” Harry asked. “After the things you said?”

“Should I want to Apparate away from you again?” Draco countered. “After the things you believed?”

“I guess our fights were always bound to be...big.”

Draco almost snorted. Big. What an understatement. How kind. 

It wasn’t big. It was cruel, cutting, violent even though they hadn’t laid a finger on each other nor reached for their wands. They knew, from years and years of hatred, exactly what to say to cut deep.

He wondered if Harry kept it all locked away in his mind or if it was always there, lurking free and ready to lash out.

That was probably the case. Harry had started it, reached into that well first.

“Do you want to know why?” Harry asked, still staring out at the sea. His grip on Draco’s hand tightened. Draco allowed it.

“Something stupid,” Draco snorted. “You always lash out when you’re feeling defensive. And you always do let things build up before finally addressing them.”

“We’re well matched then.”

“I wouldn’t call that well matched,” Draco scoffed. Poorly matched more like. “We’re volatile the moment—”

“I want to marry you,” Harry said.

A lump formed in Draco throat and no amount of swallowing seemed to make it go away. The waves crashed more violently against the shore. Or maybe that was just him projecting.

That was...everything he’d wanted for months before realising Harry didn’t really trust him. Not entirely. Not in the same way Draco had come to trust him.

“No,” he said shortly.

“I know,” Harry said, like a sigh. 

The easy acceptance made Draco want to turn and press his face to Harry’s neck. Harry knew him so deeply, so intimately.  But he stayed where he was.

Harry was an idiot for doubting him. Or maybe Draco was the idiot for thinking that such a deep knowledge of him meant Harry trusted his motives were untainted.

They were both idiots. Well matched. Poorly matched.

Draco had been suspicious of Harry’s motives for a long time too, but he’d long since realised the folly of that. He should have known Harry would have done the same. And then beaten him by never figuring out he was wrong.

Everything was a competition. Even in the worst ways possible.

“Will you come home?” Harry asked. 

Draco finally turned to look at him. Harry stared at the sea for a moment longer before meeting his eye. Sadness was etched in every line of his face.

Good. He knew exactly how he’d hurt Draco and his echo of that pain soothed some of that hurt.

“Will you trust that I’m there only because I love you, with no other reason? No other motive?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer. Already knew that it had changed, even if it had taken cruel, cruel words to do so.

“I do now,” Harry said solemnly. 

“Then yes,” Draco said, looking back out at the sea. “Take us home.”

Harry’s grip on his hand tightened, and then the twist of Apparition took them home.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by drarryismehotp with 'sea'.
> 
> This can absolutely be interpreted as an unhealthy relationship, one with unequal trust, or it can be interpreted as them figuring things out as they go along, and each step making them healthier even if it involves a hurtful fight to figure it out. It's really up to you as the reader.
> 
> **This is a completed drabble and I will not be writing more. Please do not ask me to write more or otherwise mention 'sequel' in the comments.**


End file.
